


Reform

by TheOutgriber



Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: Blue Zircon - Freeform, Gen, homeworld remains the worst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-04
Updated: 2017-06-04
Packaged: 2018-11-08 19:38:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,217
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11088531
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheOutgriber/pseuds/TheOutgriber
Summary: "For Yellow Zircon, every trial is a performance, mediocre theatrics smoothed over by just enough suave smugness to convince most judges to find in her favor." Yellow Zircon puts off reforming.





	Reform

For Yellow Zircon, every trial is a performance, mediocre theatrics smoothed over by just enough suave smugness to convince most judges to find in her favor. Their eagerness to be on the winning side, if not the strength of her argument, usually sways them. She sets out a series of statements calibrated to what her audience wants to believe, winning more often than not. She knows her limits. Personally, her understanding of emotions is what some might call rudimentary at best, but she gets along quite well by appealing to the basest of them: fear, anger, the need to survive, to restore normalcy. That’s how Homeworld has functioned for millennia, and that’s how she wins. This case should have been no different.

The desired outcome was clear, and Yellow knew how to get it quickly. Eyewitnesses, a full confession, and the Diamonds’ need to punish were all on her side. That ought to have been enough. Even now, Rose Quartz must be awaiting harvest. And yet, here Yellow is, sulking in her gemscape even though she could have reformed hours ago. She clearly won this case. So why does she feel like a loser? 

It’s not unprecedented in a quarrel between gems of similar rank for the winning party to destabilize the Zircon of the losing party. Every Zircon knows this custom and accepts it because what else is there to do? 

This feels different. And not just because she clearly didn’t lose. Not just because she is fully aware of why she’s here (she miscalculated, underestimating her own disposability while Yellow Diamond was in a temper). She’s always understood that she belongs to her Diamond. She’s learned to relish the risks. Her work is the game she was made for. Why is this different? 

She walks through the events of the trial in her mind. She’d arrived right on time, satisfied from just a cursory look through the file that this would be an open-and-shut case. 

Poor Blue Zircon stood across from her looking sweaty and slightly crumpled. Blue was not a standout among Zircons. She knew the law, respected it almost to a fault. She was also emotional. Easily flustered. Not one to take on momentous cases voluntarily. 

“Defending a rebel? Isn’t that...treason?” Yellow had said, smiling. She was definitely in the mood for this. There was something vulnerable about Blue that made Yellow want to poke at her. Blue barely managed a response--defensive already--before the Diamonds made their grand entrance, and Yellow saluted, content. 

While Blue fidgeted and perspired, Yellow made her overture, testing her Diamond’s mood with an appeal to flattery that masqueraded as high court protocol. “My Diamond. My Brilliant, Opulent, Radiant, Glimmering--”  
“--’My Diamond’ will suffice, or we’ll never get through this.” Aggravation today. “Of course, My Diamond,” Zircon said, bowing. As usual, Yellow Diamond wanted to get to the point. Good. Her impatience would speed her Zircon to victory. 

Yellow cleared her throat to mark the transition and steered her argument toward Rose Quartz’s motive. Not a masterful prosecution, but satisfying. Appeals to emotion, theatrical gestures for Blue Diamond’s benefit and short sharp statements for Yellow Diamond, phrases patterned after Yellow Diamond’s own favorites, with words like “hideous” and “purpose.”   
Testimony from a one-eyed Ruby who played her role splendidly. Yellow didn’t even have to coach her. The Ruby’s half-mad really, but she made a convenient witness even so. She had orbited Homeworld for weeks, Yellow was told, until she was collected, questioned, and deposited in a middle-grade containment area where she will probably reside for the rest of her days. 

“Well, I'm convinced.” Yellow Diamond had declared, and that was almost it. But then, Blue Diamond wanted more, and somewhere between Rose Quartz’s confession and the end of the recess, something happened that changed Blue Zircon’s outlook. Jittery, nervous Blue Zircon came back strong, invigorated, and strangely careless with her honorifics. 

As Blue’s argument took shape, Yellow felt herself shrinking back, confidence slipping away with alarming speed. Not only did it make sense, but Blue delivered it with a quiet sort of panache that Yellow envied. Blue grew increasingly heedless, firing question after dangerous question. And when her tirade reached its natural end, Yellow shook. The air was electric. Blue had done all she could to save her defendant: questioned the premise of the accusation and introduced new suspects. Except those suspects were also the accusers, the supreme rulers who controlled her destiny. Blue would be broken for this, no doubt about it. 

Yellow didn’t even flinch when her Diamond compressed Blue into nothing and left her gem on the floor. It was just what she needed, in fact. This meant she’d won. She’d restore normalcy, get through this, and pretend it never happened, she thought, swallowing her horror.   
“Case closed, right My Diamond?”   
She screamed when the current tore her apart. 

And now she’s drifting in dark, formless oblivion. She doesn’t think she’ll be shattered, but Blue probably will. It’s ironic; Blue was always so careful. Was it reverence that carried her away, or a sense of duty? It certainly wasn’t fear. Were the wily Rose Quartz’s powers of persuasion still intact? 

Maybe it’s something about the art of defense that Yellow, who was made for prosecution, doesn’t understand. That possibility makes Yellow feel funny. She always thought that the jumpy, abrasive quality that made Blue such fun to tease was defensiveness, which is really just fear dressed up (and thus, easy to manipulate). But Yellow is beginning to think she might be wrong about that. Because the longer Blue spoke, the more unstable Yellow felt. 

And when Blue said the unthinkable, Yellow felt more afraid than she had in thousands of years. If anything, the electrocution that followed was poetic justice. There Blue had stood, treasonously questioning the Diamonds and, by extension, the very foundation of gem society. And maybe she had gotten carried away, maybe it was just a misguided zeal for perfection, fear of failure gone haywire. But Yellow sees something else in Blue’s resolve: a terrified gem who refused to turn away from fear. 

Blue Zircon took the truly miniscule chance that she might temporarily postpone the execution of a treasonous blob, Rose Quartz. And Rose Quartz? Facing the Diamonds, begging for the short life of a spindly human frailer than the weakest Pearl? If Yellow were embodied, she could have scoffed at that, but she isn’t, so she doesn’t. It’s clear to her now, though no less bizarre. Blue Zircon and Rose Quartz must have concluded that fear isn’t all there is. That means, then, that there’s more than this farcical Homeworld existence. That is, if one lives long enough to find it. Did Blue live long enough to understand that? 

In Yellow’s mind, Blue bends and blurs, the scrambling file-shuffler, sweating and babbling; propping herself up against a pillar, stricken; striding and confident in her defense. She’s gone now, surely. But, then again, maybe not. It has been an odd day. A strange feeling swells in Yellow’s gem then, like the crackling of electricity, but not. She feels...afraid. And playful. And alive. The urge to reform, to be corporeal, overtakes her. She unfolds, unfurls, bursts from her gem, wondering, for the first time in centuries, what awaits her.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm calling this space lawyer Yellow Zircon for the moment, until we find out definitively whether she's supposed to be green or yellow (I'm guessing she's yellow-green). I hope the Zircons are okay!


End file.
